In Your Skin
by Sorrel
Summary: Ficlet. Alanna turns forty, and Kel teaches her something new.


**In Your Skin.** Alanna turns forty, and Kel teaches her something new.

* * *

Alanna sighed and stretched, feeling every joint in her spine pop, one after another, in a slow line up her back. She was finding that she severely disliked being forty years old, and she'd only had the pleasure of it for a few hours, now.

Forty years, she'd been alive. It was almost impossible to grasp. At eleven she had started the grand masquerade that set her on the path that had led her to this day. It was hard to believe that in twenty-nine years she went from being a girl far too interested in hunting and tracking to Alanna the Lioness, the King's Champion, married to the former King of Thieves and with three children. Her older son Alan, here at the palace where he was training to become a knight. Alan's twin Alianne, who seemed to be interested in nothing but idle amusements, such as kissing court boys, and her father's spy work. Her youngest son Thom, who, true to his namesake, was studying to become a great mage. She looked down at her hands, and noticed for the first time that lines seamed the skin. She wasn't done with her life's path, but it did seem like everything she'd ever wanted and more had come true. Was this her life's work, then? Was this her life, summed up into its tidy list of accomplishments?

"Am I interrupting anything?" a voice inquired from the doorway behind her, and she spun around to see Keladry of Mindelan standing in the doorway, a slight smile curving her lips and lighting her dreamy hazel eyes. "You seemed a bit...faraway," she explained when Alanna shot her a look.

"Just lost in thought," she said. "I turned forty this morning, did you know that?"

"I know," Kel said calmly. "I came to bring you your birthday present." She held out a neatly wrapped package, then said with the same slight smile as Alanna took it, "Sad thoughts you must have been having on your birthday."

Alanna sighed and walked over to the small table next to her bed, setting down the present and taking out a belt knife to cut the cord that held the wrapping. Kel followed her, shutting the door as she came in, and watched as Alanna carefully removed the paper from the small box.

Inside was a small brass key. Alanna picked it up and turned it over in her hands, then looked over at Kel. "What's it to?"

The younger knight shrugged. "Not sure, really." Alanna gave her a disbelieving look, and she added, "It's more of a symbolic gift, really."

Alanna just stared at the key in her hand for a few long moments, before finally giving up and shaking her head. "I give up. What's it stand for?"

"You gave it to me, when I was a child," Kel said quietly. "It's the key that unlocked my dreams. Now I'm giving it back, so that you can unlock yours."

Alanna laughed, and it was a bitter, grating sound. "I don't have any anymore. That's what I was just thinking when you walked in. I've fulfilled all my dreams, and a few I never knew I had. So what's next?"

"There's something I learned, this past year," Kel said quietly. "Once I thought all I ever wanted to do was to get my shield. Then all I wanted to do was hunt down Blayce, like I was sent to do. But I found another task along the way, and then another, and then another. I help people now. Not that you don't, or that I haven't in the past, but this... helping the refugees, watching out for the people that usually get stepped on- it's what I was meant to do. It's the task that was in front of me all along, and I didn't see it because I could only see the tasks I'd already been set. But once I'd finished those, I was able to see what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life."

"You're young," Alanna pointed out. "Only nineteen years old. I'm forty, now. I got my shield, went off and heroed, came back in time to save our kingdom, and got married. Fought lots more battles, and somehow had three children in the midst of it that managed to grow up into fine people even though I was always off fighting yet more battles. And now I've realized that I've gotten old, and I don't have the rest of my life, because I've already lived half of it."

"You always have the rest of your life," Kel pointed out. "Even if you die tomorrow, you have tonight."

"You know, Neal always said that you weren't one for philosophy, or speeches," Alanna remarked. "Yet here I've been getting a lot of them, for you having only been in my rooms for a short while."

"It was important to say," Kel said. "I'm sure Neal also mentioned that I'm practical. If it needs to be said, then I'll generally make an attempt to say it. Oh, and if there's one other fact that Neal might have passed on, it's that I always make him eat his vegetables. Did he rejoice in being vegetable-free when he was your squire?"

"Hardly," Alanna said with a snort. "I made him eat his vegetables, too."

They shared a smile, and Alanna thought with a start that despite the differences in their ages and temperaments, she had more in common with Keladry of Mindelan than with almost anyone else.

"I always wanted to be you, you know," Kel said. "Now I'm not so sure."

Alanna shook her head and laughed. "Some of the time, I'm not sure that I would want to be me, given the choice."

"You've had a hard path to walk," Kel said. "I don't envy that."

"Yours hasn't been easy either," Alanna pointed out with a raised eyebrow. "In fact, it could be said that you had it harder than I did."

Kel shook her head. "I don't think so. At the end of the day, I'm still just Kel. Not even just Keladry of Mindelan, lady knight, but just Kel. You, however- you're a legend. I don't know if I could put that away when I go to bed at night."

"I don't know if I do either," Alanna said. "Sheer force of will, perhaps?"

Kel smiled. "Maybe. But for all that I'm not lacking in force of will- just ask Neal- I'm much too plain and practical a person. I was given a mission by the gods because I was suited to do so, but you were shaped by them. I don't think I would ever want that. My life is my own."

"My life is mine as well," Alanna protested, but Kel shook her head.

"No, you belong to the world, Alanna the Lioness. You are a _legend._ I wonder if you know what that means." Alanna was silent. "Maybe when you do," Kel said gently, "you'll understand why there will never be any lack of purpose in your life."

She stood and slipped out the door, as silently as she had entered, leaving Alanna lost in thought.


End file.
